The present invention relates to reading and writing data on a tape storage medium, and more particularly to encoding information on a tape storage medium using write offset gaps.
A tape drive is a data storage device that reads and writes data on a magnetic tape storage medium. Tape storage is typically used for offline backup and archival of data, meaning data is written to a tape, and the tape is removed (e.g., un-mounted) from the tape drive and stored in a tape library. If the data on the tape is needed at a later time (e.g., restoring lost or corrupted data), the tape may be re-mounted on a tape drive and the data restored to a storage medium (e.g., disk storage).
Data may be written to, or read from, a tape in segments called datasets. When writing a dataset on a tape, the tape drive may use multiple heads (e.g., 16, or 32 heads), and each head writes a portion of the dataset (e.g., with 32 write heads, each head writes ˜1/32 of the dataset). When reading a dataset from tape, heads function similarly, with each head reading a portion of the dataset (e.g., with 32 read heads, each head reads ˜1/32 of the dataset). The number of heads used differs according to the format of a tape medium and the tape drive.